Cost Glossary

Browse 12 cost terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

12 Cost Terms

AI Cost
The total expense associated with building, running, or maintaining AI systems, including model usage, compute, storage, evaluation, data labeling, and...
AI Inference Cost
The compute and infrastructure cost of running a trained AI model to produce outputs for real users.
Egress
Data transferred out of a cloud provider's network to the internet or another region. Cloud providers typically charge for egress but not ingress, making it...
Inference
The process of using a trained model to make predictions or generate outputs from new inputs. As opposed to training (which teaches the model), inference is...
Inference Budget
The amount of compute, latency, tokens, or money available for running inference on a task or product. Inference budgets force tradeoffs among model quality,...
Inference Cost
The cost incurred when running a model to produce outputs, including compute usage, provider charges, and operational overhead. Inference cost is a central...
LLM Cost
The cost associated with using a large language model, including API charges, compute resources, and surrounding operational overhead. LLM cost is closely...
Model Cost
The cost associated with training, hosting, or running a model in production, including compute, storage, licensing, and operational overhead. Model cost...
Model Fine-Tuning Cost
The total expense of adapting a base model to a new task, including compute, data preparation, experimentation, and engineering time.
Spot Instance
Spare cloud compute capacity sold at steep discounts (up to 90% off on-demand pricing) with the caveat that instances can be reclaimed with short notice...
Training Budget
The amount of money, compute, time, or engineering effort available for training or fine-tuning a model. Training budgets constrain how much experimentation...
Training Cost
The total cost of training a model, including compute usage, storage, engineering time, data preparation, and supporting infrastructure. Training cost is a...

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